


are you ready for the sequel (everything's coming up aces)

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Series: tell my father (this is my life) [12]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexual Character, Body Image, But he's getting better, Family Bonding, Gen, Happy Ending, Mental Health Issues, POV Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy), Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Scars, Three Years Later, all i want is a happy ending for these characters, and mostly dealing with his shit, but it's five what do you expect, okay, passing mention of dead bodies, yeah Five's a bit fucked in the head
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-25 03:28:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20369929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: Some nights, Five wakes up from nightmares to find Diego pushing back the sheets on his bed, telling him to "move over so I can fucking cuddle you, you little bastard" or find Allison sitting in the chair next to his bed, her fingers running through his hair. And just like Luther and Mom taking care of him when he was sick, it makes him feel like a child again, not a sixty-something-year-old man in a teenage body.Well, that makes sense. Five never got to be a child. He never got to grow up with any sort of socialization. Instead, he grew up in a barren, orange world where the only person was a mannequin.And now- well, he has an adult's job, and adult siblings, and adult memories, but-It can't hurt to let other people in. It can't hurt to be comforted, to let the scars heal over, to let the memories of rot and death and decay start to blur into a lump of horror. It can't hurt to let himself grow, to be as human as a super-powered man with the family he has can be.So Five curls into Allison's hand, lets Diego cuddle him, and lets himself be comforted. He lets himself be loved.(Five, the second time around and three years on.)





	are you ready for the sequel (everything's coming up aces)

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Hey Look Ma, I Made It" by Panic! at the Disco.
> 
> I wrote a good portion of this listening to "Hunger" by Florence + the Machine, a song that really works for Five and, well, the entirety of the Hargreeves siblings.

_My body left in ruins, this broken temple, this forgotten city, conquered and razed to ash. _

_My body like a crime scene, dusted for fingerprints, the blood never wiped away. _

_My body in a constellation, its own exploding star, all your wishes hanging on something that’s been dead for years. _

_My body, unforgiven. _

_My body, unholy. _

_My body, trembling. _

**— Emily Palermo, _If a Body Catch a Body_**

Being in a sixteen-year-old body again is a major bitch, and Five is not exaggerating when he says so. There are so many things that he can and can't do, things he has to relearn how to do because muscle memory can't always carry him through.

And as for the physical, well, of course there's the fucking acne. Even though he has healthier food this time around, he's still dealing with pimples. Him, assassin and time traveller and world-saver and Apocalypse-survivor, is having to stare at the fucking _pimple_ on his face.

Well, at least he can thank the lord that he's ace and doesn't have to go through figuring out how to work his dick in a more...teenage way for a second time. No, instead he just has to deal with the the lack of respect and the fucking laws and-

He finds himself learning how to meditate in the years after he deposits Cha-Cha right outside of the Commission Headquarters and buries Jack's ashes somewhere. He needs _something _to calm down in the middle of everything he's getting done, because, yeah, school is...not in the picture. He's sixty one and a bit of a genius and being in high school would bore him to fucking tears.

So instead, he's been doing other things. He runs a small store on the internet, keeps detailed notes on his siblings' power changes, maintains a blog about the hijinks his siblings get up to, manages Allison's career-

Well, fuck. He doesn't know how to slow down, how not to pour himself into everything, how to calm down and take care of himself. He's spent so long giving his everything to his goals, that he can't exert any sort of self-control whatsoever.

But he's learning to, alright? He hasn't killed anyone in three years...alright, that's a fucking lie. He's helped out Diego on a few cases, ones that had the potential to go severely awry. He knows that Allison and Diego don't want him to have to kill again, but, well, he's good at what he does. And he does it sparingly, and just to help his family.

He has also rediscovered (for what? the third time? the fourth time?) alcohol. Beautiful, world-dimming alcohol. Alcohol that soothes his dreams and takes the edge off of things, sometimes.

And it's only every once in a while. A glass or two on weekends, a sip or two throughout the week.

Five's not a fool. He's not going to fall into addiction or use it as a tool to completely cope again. People in Europe- they drink alcohol, occasionally. He'll be fine.

(And besides- even if he wanted to, Allison and Diego have been watching him like hawks. They make sure he stays safe. And maybe in the past that would have rankled, but in a way, it _is_ pretty comforting.)

But over all, he's getting better. He _is_ better. 

It's been three years. Three years and he's still going to the diner on Wednesday nights. Most of the time Luther and Diego and Allison are there. Some nights one of them is gone, Diego working with Patch on an urgent case or Allison visiting Claire or Luther going to one of his night classes- because yes, Luther's going to school to study a combination of music and psychology, of all things (he says he wants to be a music therapist, full disclosure), but whoever's there, Five appreciates and enjoys it. It's a sort of fun, frivolous thing that Father _never_ would have allowed, and that combined with the sense of normalcy it gives Five means more than he could- or would- say.

He's meditating, like he said. He's hanging out with his siblings. He's running a business. He's been doing a lot of things for the past three years to keep himself busy and sane and recovering, just a little.

-

Five's staring at the mirror again. He didn't look at a mirror for most of the Apocalypse, but when he did, well- the scars and fuck-ups were clear.

There are different scars, now. He's missing the scar from behind his ear and the chunk from his arm and the thousand of tally marks scratched into his skin. They're all gone, replaced by the skin and body he has now. New scars- the one in his side, from the explosion at the Commission, another in his shoulder from the stitches from his fight at that old diner. New scars, for a new life, where he doesn't treat his body like a tool but rather like an actual human, like something to be...well, he would say cherished, but he's not always very good at that. He forgets, so often, to take care of himself.

So alright, he may be better, but he isn't _good_. His body issues still remain, three years later. He still fails a lot at recognizing his body as something to take care of. He often forgets to brush his teeth, to visit the doctor, to use lotion on those dry patches on the inside of his elbows. None of those were priorities, in the Apocalypse- personal hygiene didn't matter.

He got sick, four months ago, and it took him forever to agree to go to the doctor. He'd weathered worse, in the Apocalypse- a common cold was nothing. A runny nose was nothing.

It had taken Diego and Allison and a very stubborn Luther to get him to go to the doctor, to get the antibiotics he needed to take. He'd been put on bedrest for a couple of days- nearly driving him insane- and babied by Mom and Luther. Mom and Luther brought him soup and covered him in blankets and seen to his every little request.

And yes, Five can weather worse, he knows. But here, without the Apocalypse, with his family- he doesn't _have_ to weather worse. He has been slowly, _slowly_ learning that he can make his own health and body a priority bigger than _just don't die_.

"Staring at your own reflection, again?" Patch asks, and Five turns to look at his brother's smirking girlfriend. The cop is one of the more easily nice people in the house, but she's definitely not afraid to be blunt when necessary- two traits that work really well in a partner for Diego.

And speaking of Patch- that's definitely a change from pre-Apocalypse days. Before Five got lost in a wasteland, years and years ago, the house was always silent and tense, brimming with heavy anxiety and fear of Father. Now, after the Not-Apocalypse (or ArmageDon't, as Klaus and Dave and Ben have taken to referring to it), the house is full of people and life and laughter.

For one, there's Patch, who shares Diego's now-renovated room and goes on cases with him in the evenings while also helping out with the occasional prank between family members in the mansion. She often ends up acting as the voice of reason to a house of people with super powers, but don't count out her sense of humor and her cleverness. Dying has both affirmed her sense of justice and given her a new lease on life.

Then there's also Alyssa living in the mansion with them, now. She has been for about half a year now, since her and Vanya got engaged last year in L.A. and they decided to move here.

Because yes, Vanya's decided to get married, and to be honest it's starting to look like she's going to be the only one who legally, officially gets married as, well, Ben's dead, Klaus and Diego's boyfriend and girlfriend are dead, Luther's come out as aromantic (watching Klaus explain the whole queer spectrum to Luther was honestly one of the best nights of Five's very long life), Allison doesn't seem to have any interest in getting married again any time soon, and Five, well...he doesn't think he's ever going to get into a relationship again. (And he's pretty okay with that.)

Alyssa's a rather nice person, all things said. She's got a sharp sense of humor that Five can definitely relate to, but she's kind and patient and loves Vanya like she deserves to be loved. She makes Vanya smile, brings her flowers after her concerts, can make the lights in the room dance without having to provide Vanya a single song. 

Of course there's also Dave, who's been here the longest of the non-siblings, though not by much. He's integrated pretty well into the modern day, though like Klaus he tends to wear an army vest with nearly every outfit. He has really taken to video games, and he _really_ likes binge-watching tv shows with anyone who can stand it.

And speaking of Klaus, well- the levitation has taken a bit getting used to, Five has got to admit. They'd all thought that Klaus' upgrade had been his ability to make the ghosts corporeal, but they'd ended up being dead wrong on the subject when one day Klaus had just woken up floating by the ceiling.

The fact that Vanya and Klaus are so close to each other has been rather useful, Five has to admit. When Klaus had first been figuring out how to control his levitation ability, Vanya had been able to use her telekinesis to keep him close, to pull him back to keep him from floating away.

(Five has to admit, though, that it is plenty fun to watch Klaus and Dave figuring out how to dance together while five feet up in the air.)

"Maybe," Five admits, smirking a bit, and she just rolls her eyes.

"Just wanted to warn you that one of your brothers might be planning something involving shaving cream," she admits, "And one of your sisters _may_ be planning on bending reality _just_ a little to get the prank completed."

"Duly noted, Detective," Five says with a bit of a mock-salute, and Patch smiles.

"Glad to hear it."

-

He takes a lot of runs with Diego and Luther at various times- the morning, afternoon, after diner visits.

He got used to trudging while in the apocalypse and then to running, just to pass the time in the Apocalypse, in the years when he was growing and nothing else in the world was.

But his older body wasn't very good at running. It ached in places and curled in others and thought he was good at shooting, he sucked at aerobics. No shit- he was malnourished and underweight and _old_. Cardiovascular activity is a lot harder than locking one's muscles and occasionally teleporting when needed.

So the last time he truly, truly ran was the day he ran away from home. He ran far away, as far as he could run, until everyone was dead and there was no one left to run back to.

And now, running with Diego and Luther- he always returns. He always comes back. He's running _towards_ something, and not away.

And that's an improvement, Five knows, and he can't help but feel a bit satisfied by that fact. Even at sixty-one-years-old, he's still improving. He's still moving forward.

-

Five still has nightmares of his siblings' bodies, this many years out. Forty years watching their bodies decay doesn't leave easily, after all. He can still remember the stench of their rotting corpses, still remember the way their flesh had decayed from their body, still remember how the insects had gnawed on their bones. Nightmares are the least that can be expected from that.

But some nights, he wakes up to find Diego pushing back the sheets on his bed, telling him to _move over so I can fucking cuddle you, you little bastard _or find Allison sitting in the chair next to his bed, her fingers running through his hair. And just like Luther and Mom taking care of him when he was sick, it makes him feel like a child again, not a sixty-something-year-old man in a teenage body.

Well, that makes sense. Five never got to be a child. He never got to grow up with any sort of socialization. Instead, he grew up in a barren, orange world where the only person was a mannequin.

And now- well, he has an adult's job, and adult siblings, and adult memories, but-

It can't hurt to let other people in. It can't hurt to be comforted, to let the scars heal over, to let the memories of rot and death and decay start to blur into a lump of horror. It can't hurt to let himself grow, to be as human as a super-powered man with the family he has can be.

So Five curls into Allison's hand, lets Diego cuddle him, and lets himself be comforted. He lets himself be _loved_. 

\- 

Allison's premiere is tonight. She went fully back to acting about a year after the not-Apocalypse, and she's done pretty well for herself without even using her Rumor once. Turns out she's pretty fucking good at making people believe her, even without her Powers.

Some makeup teams hide her scar. Others embrace it.

(She's gotten a lot of horror roles since she went back into writing. She also once played a noblewoman in a historical drama about the French Revolution.

Klaus has found it utterly hilarious, and he's gotten copies of all the movies. To Five's shock, Vanya likes it just as much too.)

But everyone's gotten dressed up for her premiere, just like they all do for Vanya's concerts, and Five's wearing a suit that's been tailored to fit this teenage body of his. It reminds him, a bit, of the suit he wore as an assassin, but _he _got to choose this one, with its dark purple lining and its matching pocket square and the skinny purple tie- a bit dramatic, sure, but absolutely nothing compared to Klaus and his hot pink suit complete with tails and a tall black and pink top hat.

Dave looks at Klaus and he looks like he's staring at the Australian Breakaways- like Klaus is the most absolutely beautiful thing the world possible could have created, a masterpiece of nature that he could stare at for the rest of his life and never get bored. They've been together for four years now (including that one year in Vietnam), and that's still the way he looks at Klaus- that's pretty awesome, Five has got to admit.

"Uncle Five!" a familiar voice shrieks, and Five turns to see Claire, eight-years-old, running at him. He crouches down just a little bit to hug her, careful not to ruin her most assuredly designer dress with a poofy purple skirt.

In the years since she first took down Cha-Cha and Jack, Allison has used her ability very sparingly. Outside of her acting career, she's been spending quite a lot of time at hospitals. Her ability to change reality has allowed her to cure singular people of diseases and knit wounds back together. She's yet to be able to cure entire diseases from the world, but she's working toward it. Using her ability this way has not led to the kind of moral crises that led to her swearing it off in the first place- being selfless with it has led to her to be a lot more at peace with her reality-bending.

As a result, she's gotten to spend more time with her daughter, and in the past year Claire has attended a few of the premieres that the rest of the Hargreeves have been going to. Claire tends to spend most of her time with either her mother or with Five when she visits, a rather pleasant surprise for him.

"How's my favorite niece?" Five asks as they part, and Claire just rolls her eyes.

"I'm your only niece, Uncle Five," she informs him seriously. "Now, do you want to hear what I learned about birth order this week?"

Five nearly laughs- birth order? God, could he tell her a few things about _that_. But instead, he just nods. "I'd love to hear it, Claire." Because he would, because he loves the passion Allison's daughter already has for learning. He loves that _she_ loves telling him things.

Claire grins. "Well," she starts, "The oldest sibling is traditionally the most independent and ambitious..."

And Five settles in to listen to his niece for the next twenty minutes before he heads to the restroom before the movie starts, the smallest of smiles on his lips as she rambles.

-

There's a mirror in the bathroom, here at the theater, that Five's currently staring into. He sees this suit, the small line of eyeliner that he let Klaus paint under his eyes, the lack of scars, the actual, genuine smile on his lips.

This still isn't the body that he's used to, but it's the body that he has now, a healthier and happier version of his teenage body the first time around. It's a body that is taken care of, that exercises regularly without starving, that eats at least two meals a day, that isn't drowning in alcohol, that sleeps through the night and is loved by his siblings.

Five thinks of his siblings, some of them happy with partners, some of them happy with children, some of them happy with school. He thinks of how they no longer live in silence and tension, weight clear on their shoulders, but rather with lively noise and an ease to their steps. They're not perfect- they never will be- but they're _happier_ and no longer worrying about Father and that's what matters.

And he thinks of himself and the life he's building, strange as it may be.

Maybe it's finally time to go see Delores again. It's been three years since he last set her down in that mall store where he first found her- he thinks she'll be proud of the man he's evolved into, the life he's built.

He can be happy with her, this time around. He can introduce her to his siblings, who have their own strange relationships of their own.

The door opens behind him, and this time it's Dave, wearing a rather traditional black suit and blue tie. Though he cuts a nice figure with his bright smile and nicely-chiseled face, he's nowhere near as extravagant as his partner. (Then again, it would be _very_ hard to be more dramatic than Klaus. Klaus has a statement presence.)

"The movie's about to begin," Dave says, not even asking why Five was just staring at the bathroom mirror. "And I wanted to make sure that you didn't miss the beginning- they tell me that there's a time travel plot that you need to see the beginning to understand."

His smile is warm and inviting and Five nods. "Sounds good to me," he says, and he follows Dave out of the bathroom.

_You and all your vibrant youth_

_How could anything bad ever happen to you?_

_You make a fool of death with your beauty, and for a moment_

_I forget to worry_

**-Florence + the Machine,** _ ** Hunger** _

**Author's Note:**

> To whoever's still paying attention to this series, I hope you enjoyed this little epilogue of sorts! A lot of people wanted to see Klaus get his levitation powers, and I wanted a bit of closure/"a few years later" type scene/more happy endings. Also, who doesn't love Five?
> 
> If you liked, please comment- comments are the lifeblood of a writer, after all!


End file.
